By the way -- TV news, newspapers, radio -- they all have one thing in common: News. A hypothesis: News stories are typically about events. So while it may be effective to contact a local TV station, for example, to do a story about GridRepublic, I think it will be much more effective if there is some event, some happenning, that they can come and cover. Newspeople need stories, they need for something to happen, something they can come and take pictures of.
So if you install GridRepublic at a local school, and run for instance Rosetta@home, call the news people: "3rd Grade Class Cures Cancer!"
Maybe you can convince a big local company to install; or maybe you can get the local chamber of commerce to convince member businesses to install: this would be a story.
But maybe the simplest thing is to throw a (fundraising?) party. Know a good local band, have them play. More ideas and discussion about parties and concerts is here.
